Is there a Perfect Wireless Router?

Recently I have been looking for a decent wireless router, weeks have passed, searching the forum and plenty of googl'in etc. I scan the net for hours and hours looking for the perfect router but my dreams are always shattered by the reviews!

The cost of dual band frequencies are more than its worth to be honest aswell.

I simply cannot find that perfect ADSL router, the points I'm looking for;

• Reliability
• Good Wireless range (N preferably)
• Gigabit LAN ports.

How is it that a manufacturer hasn't seen this gap in the market? There doesn't seem to be a nice, fairly priced router out there!

If anyone knows of any routers that meet the criteria above, please post links!.. Help me find that perfect router!

Ta, Tom.

 

At present the best router seems to be the Netgear WNDR3700 ( review) followed by Linksys E3000 vel. WRT610 v2.( review)
I'm not sure what you mean by ADSL router though. If you are looking for a combo device that includes an ADSL modem, router and wireless AP your options are more limited.
Another matter- the best routers are the most expensive top of the line ones, so if you think that simultaneous dual band is not worth the cost you are automatically discarding the best routers.
It's either the best or reasonably priced.

 

I have a BT line so I cannot use cable routers. Yes an ADSL modem built into the router.

I understand your view about the simultaneous dual band, but its not really worth the extra money, is it?

If only the Netgear WNDR3700 had an option that included a built in ADSL Modem.

Ta, Tom.

 

It all depends what are you after- you can buy a router and a separate ADSL modem which is will give you the choice of all the bets routers.

The other option is a good combo. It all depends on your budget.
A good and inexpensive choice would be TP Link TD-W8960N. If you are willing to spend more Linksys WAG160N is an interesting choice and employs good hardware (Broadcom ADSL chip, Atheros radio, 32MB RAM)

 

I haven't seen that good reviews for the Linksys products, most reviews say they have poor reliability and network range?

The TP Link TD-W8960N looks good but I would prefer one with Gigabit Ports instead of just generic Ethernet ports. Otherwise that would be my 'perfect' router

Ta,Tom

 

I forgot TP Link doesn't have gigabit ports
As for Linksys' reliability and performance- it's one of the best companies in this department- in my opinion the best one- and if I was to choose between Linksys and TP Link (disregarding the price as a factor) I would definitely go Linksys.

My post was meant to give you the better (Linksys) and cheaper (TP-LINK) but apparently you've turned it all around

Linksys usually is better than TP Link when it comes to hardware (still both companies are good) but both companies are very good when it comes to firmware (both in terms of quality and how frequent the updates are)
That part (firmware quality) is very important especially when it comes to ADSL which is more diverse and complicated than Ethernet. So in essence you should disregard companies that are not known for good support and stable firmwares like D-Link or Asus (the latter only in the DSL department)

I'm pretty sure that Linksys would work fine for you but it's not my call.

 

I'll have another look at the Linksys, but the customer reviews i have seen, lots of people have been giving 1 star etc due to poor reliability and poor network coverage as I said earlier.

Take a look at these reviews : Amazon.co.uk: Customer Reviews: Linksys by Cisco WAG160N Wireless-N Modem Router - 300 mbps (for ADSL / telephone line connections i.e BT Broadband)

The wireless seems to be failing constantly. :/

Am I right in saying that if playing LAN games/transferring data using wired connections, having the gigabit ports will make quite a difference compared to normal ethernet ports?

Ta, Tom.

 

Apparently the problem is the Atheros radio or rather its implementation by Linksys. Linksys almost always relies on Broadcom chips both for routing and for radio. This is the second case where I see them have trouble with Atheros in their router so I guess I'm not even gonna look at their products on non-Broadcom hardware until someone proves me wrong.

Gigabit Ethernet will not help you in any way in gaming it will however offer you more speed when transferring large files between computers on your LAN.

So in the end you are right about that Linksys. It's rather unlucky for them because WAG120N is weak, WAG160N has problems (although there are two hardware versions of it and it's hard to tell does the problem affect both or not- no reason to take any risks though). In the end the only really good router/modem they have to offer is the WAG320N which is rather expensive.

 

In most all cases the wireless band width will be greater that your ISP speed. Lag is the bigger issue when it comes to games. I prefer seperate hardware (modem, router, AP). This way unless you loose the modem your not dead in the water. And in most cases this gives you the best performance too. The GigE speed is nice it your moving large files between pc's on your network. Once you hit the gateway (www) 10baseT will be fast enough for most so any 100baseT net found on most all routers work just fine.

 

Ohh, so most of the time, using the router day to day without gigabit ports I won't actually see much of a difference at all? It will only be on the odd occasions when I transfer large files over LAN that I will see an improvement?

I need to research the TD-W8960N some more it seems!

Ta, Tom.

 

LOL, the best router is still CAT5 Excellent reception with full speed 24/7 and only "drops" when you install it.

Sorry, I'll go away now..you said wireless!

 

HI I guess the perfect router is different in many cases.

Me for instance ..........I have been looking for a Dual band modem that I can use on Copper wire lines (no cable available) and will supply the maximum amount of customers with service with maximum range.

My Graphics workshop is near a railway line (steam railway) and I think I might just pickup some customers by offering Freewifi while they are waiting to travel etc. Perhaps like the parking schemes where the parking fee is refunded only if you spend £5 or more...but it might just be better using it as advertising, as I offer an online T shirt design and might get the kids to design one there and then and pick it up after their train journey.

So you see I have various needs but just do not know what the most important one is yet. ALL I know is I find wifi to be poor in range, my Linksys struggles to get from one room to the next let alone several hundred yards to where my customers are.

Any advice appreciated.

Regards Andy T

 

You need something meatier than what you will pick up at the local store if you want to feed multiple homes.

You might get away with a Linksys e3000 or Netgear WNDR3700, but I would expect you will have reliability issues with that many people hooking into it.

If you insist on what you are trying to do with cheap parts...
I would get a 3700 or e3000 for your office, for personal use, this gives you N speeds and gigabit. I would then get 3 Buffalo WHR-HP-G54 and put Tomato firmware on them, these are cheap, reliable and have big, higher gain antennas (you can get all three for about the price of one of the higher end routers listed above). Put one in your office plugged into your router then put the two extras out as close to your customers as possible. Use WDS with AP to wirelessly link the Buffalos together and share the load as well as have a fallback if one goes down. Customers using free internet don't need or expect gigabit and N, they just need internet access and G is faster than most internet connections anyhow. Cost? $210-$270 and about an hour of work (look up "wds tomato" for tutorials on how to link them). If this doesn't work though, you will be investing in some antennas. Which can cost hundreds, or pennies depending on how cheap you are.


Run a separate modem, don't try to combine it with your router and wireless, they aren't nearly as good.

 

My trusty D-Link DIR-855 still has not failed on my yet.
Streams HD content over 5 GHz N with no problems at all.
It was a trainwreck before the firmware update, and it would crash 2 to 3 times a week.

v1.22 Link: ftp://ftp.dlink.com/Gateway/dir855/Firmware/dir855_fw_122NA.zip

I knew D-Link has a lousy reputation, so thats why i got that wireless router extremely cheap.
If was using a european firmware release, but its not a problem to flash it with the north american firmware update.

 

DLINK DIR-655

D-Link Xtreme N Gigabit Router

 

I would recommend Apple AirPort Extreme. I have had good results with it and know many people who use it as well. I had seen great reviews on it and that is why I switched from Linksys about a year ago. I always check consumer reports before purchasing anything, so I would check that out too.

 

Most disappointing pile of garbage I ever had the displeasure of working with.

Ranks right up there with Windows ME in my opinion. It took D-Link nearly 2 years to make it stable. They actually cleaned out THOUSANDS of complaints in their forums about this router and it still has more than 3 times the number of complaints of their other routers.

I got tired of seeing thread after thread of people saying 'I fixed it!" only to find the fix was that they replaced it. I did the same and couldn't be happier to be rid of that junk. D-Link has a list of problems they need to take care of before I elevate them to a level just above Belkin, which I also refuse to recommend.

 

There are lots of good reports of this router, my only problem is it's overpriced for what you get. It's no better than the e3000 or 3700 mentioned earlier, it just has a shiny Apple logo and price tag to match.

 

well.... start with the ddwrt web site and look up the 'approved hardware' list for what they support. On that list you'll find everything cross-ref'd by the cpu, radio set, ram and flash memory.

Assuming that the radio set is a good one (and the ddwrt kids do NOT put up with crappy radios), then you can look for routers that have the faster CPUs and more ram. More ram is (generally) better because it gets used as network buffers and scratch space. More flash memory implies (but does not guarantee) a higher level of functionality in the router firmware. Faster cpu, lets the router get more done, lets it keep up as a gig-e switch, lets it properly process N and multi-N streams, etc, etc.

As far as D-link goes, yah, about 1/2 of their product is crap. But the other half is actually pretty good (same story with cisco/linksys, trend, netgear, zonet, and everyone else). You have to pay attention to the 'revision level' of the router hardware. For example: The D-link 615 router. First three hardware revs, generally crap. Last two revs, pretty good and now it's one of the favorites on the ddwrt forums.

Even if I wasn't going to run ddwrt, I wouldn't get a router that couldn't because of the extra layer of scrutiny that the ddwrt people put hardware through before they bother porting to it.

 

I won't buy one that can't run aftermarket firmware BECAUSE of D-Link.

Sure, they do have some good stuff, and yeah, other companies have bum parts. What company that has been around a while hasn't put out something that was utter crap. However, making poor decision after poor decision and hurting your customers, is entirely different.

It's not just a matter of crap products themselves, but corporate policies. How about that firmware where they "just decided" you no longer needed 802.11B. Or how about removing bridging from a router because they felt it was no longer needed or worth the effort. How about rerouting your miss-typed URL's to a D-Link webpage where they tried selling you more of their crap. A few of these also were made so you couldn't revert back to old firmware as well. This is beyond the fact that they have 2 routers lately that they released and could not get stable for at least a year each. One is still not fixed, the other took almost 2 years.

I could forgive them if the 655 had a bad part, I can forgive if a supplier screwed them. Not fixing things, and making the choices they made above, THAT I can't forgive so easily. I'll stick with my recommendations of Linksys, Netgear and Buffalo. At least they aren't doing this stuff on purpose.


Oh, and last time I looked, DD-WRT had the WNDR3700 listed incorrectly in terms of Ram and Flash. So be sure to doublecheck. Also, check their forums, because the router database is always well behind actual development. If it says work in progress, or possible, check the forum, there may be a stable build not listed.

 

I actually applied this thinking to the latest router I bought. To answer the OP's question I bought a Netgear DGN2000 which is a Wireless N ADSL Modem + Router (no gigabit tho). It was for a home office and space saving was the real reason for that, an all in one asus eeetop, and an epson workforce 600. I am still happy with the latter two but the wired ports have crapped out on my netgear after less than a year (connected to a UPS to prevent internet loss during power outages).

I ordered the Linksys E3000 (was considering the E2000 to save $50 since I do not need the AV Server) after reading good reviews on it. The ddwrt does not have the E series on their list. Is this because it is more or less the WRT610N?

 

Routers listed as ddwrt friendly are there because a) they are capable of being flashed by the end user without too much problem and b) have a cpu and chipset that make them ddwrt friendly and c) are otherwise capable/interesting enough that someone was willing to port ddwrt to that platform **and** maintain that port.

Again pay close attention to the hardware revision levels. Back that up by researching posts in the ddwrt forums.

I suspect that having a supportable cpu/chipset and enough flash memory/ram are the driving factors in whether or not a particular router will be picked up and supported by the ddwrt community. There are however, nearly 50 models that *are* listed which should be enough of a selection to keep you happy.

Remember that ddwrt does not **add** to the existing feature-set of a router. ddwrt completely **replaces** the original features and firmware.

So when buying a piece of hardware to run ddwrt, the factory-fresh out-of-the-box capabilities should be the LAST thing you worry about.

 

What it does stock should be considered, the idea is having the option, should you need it. Stock firmware is faster in most cases, but if you can't get it running stable, or need a feature stock doesn't support, you have options.

Firmware is exactly the same as bios on a computer, you shouldn't mess with them unless you need to.

 

Ok, so we've established that you don't like dlink or ddwrt.

Anything else?

 

And yet somehow you still managed to miss the point.

 

It's hard to see the point through all of the objections.....

 

Personally I do not think there is a Perfect wireless router. All suffer from some ailment, whether it's distance, drops, through put. Your best hardware will be individual componets, modem if required, wired router, switches, and AP. I have found over the years when you setup this way you end up with a much more stable system. The only time I have to reboot my routers is when I do a firmware update, which is few and far between. My wired routers is a SMB class so it never has a problem with high band width use. My switch is a Managed GigE Switch 16 ports with full bandwidth both directions on all ports. It has never had to be rebooted. Then I have 3 routers setup as AP. Again other than speed these do not suffer from lockup of any kind. Because they only have one function to do. With residential equipment they are not design to be pushed hard 24/7 like Business class equipment.

So find something that works for you, most all enviroments are different. So what works well at one location may not work well at another.

SmallNetBuilder did test the Netgear router with dd-wrt and it killed the wireless speed. It look like what was a very good firmware may have turned into bloat ware, killing it's advantage. Unlike the older years where dd-wrt was installed for stability and speed gain over factory firmware. Now if you need the added features it brings it's the trade off you will have to accept.